Mike Watt & The Missingmen

For the last several years, Mike Watt has done everything from serve as bassist for the reformed Iggy & the Stooges, play on Kelly Clarksons third album, and revisit his past via We Jam Econo, a documentary about his now-legendary group The Minutemen. And now on Hyphenated-Man, his first solo album in six years, he delivers 30 songs about characters found in Heironymous Bosch paintings, delivered in that trademark punk-folk-skate-jazz sound that is his own. Watts voice has grown husky with age, but his playing flies out of the speakers like splatters of Jackson Pollock paint. Its a head-spinner of a record, a beautiful mess of quick musical twists and blue-collar oomph! The whole thing spills over with ideas, but in classic econo mode, the longest songs are 2:04. In the middle of it all is Watt himself, flannel shirtsleeves cuffed at the elbows, more than willing to work his ass off for arts sake. With Stag. BRIAN J. BARR